App Academy

The experience of going through the in-person curriculum was stressful but worth it. It was a bit hard trying to keep up with the lessons specially when we switched from Ruby to SQL and to JavaScript in a short time span. They will teach you everything you need to learn but you have to persevere. My tip for aspiring students is to practice being vocal about your code, or just be vocal. Sure, App Academy will help you practice pair programming but it's up to you to do the extra mile and be better at making your ideas be clear to someone else. To everyone wanting to be part of App Academy, Goodluck! :)

App Academy is a truly intensive 16 week program that requires dedication to get the most out of it. This bootcamp is ideal for people with little to no prior experience in software development and will teach you the knowledge necessary to build a full stack web app by week 12. For people with some prior experience, the beginning will be a little slow as the material is tailored to new developers. Being in the latter camp, I still found this program very valuable in many ways that self-study can not compare. The structure of the curriculum and the quality of the projects students work on everyday really reinforce the concepts taught. The guidance of the teaching assistants and the camaraderie of other students provide a great learning environment that will push you to stay on track.
Now for some criticisms. This bootcamp will teach you very basic fundamentals early on and then transition quickly into being focused on frontend web development. The practical skills taught are all in frontend frameworks. This is great to train students to be able to jump into a junior frontend role and be productive, but not so great if you desire to work backend. Now of course a/A is just providing the building blocks to launch students into a career in software development and students can certainly transition into a backend role, but it likely won't be the first job after a/A. The program is 16 weeks and can not replace a CS degree. A lot of self-study is necessary right after the program ends to shore up deficiencies in the data structures and algorithms.
As for the SF campus, the building is located in Financial District / Embarcadero which means rent will be very expensive if you want to live nearby. If you are moving to SF, look for housing right away after being accepted and see if you can find a roommate with a fellow student in the cohort. The equipment on campus is adequate but some upgrades could be made with the office chairs. Having your own relatively modern laptop is a must.
All in all, I am very pleased with what I've gained through App Academy in the last 4 months. Putting in 60-100 hours per week was all worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I've met incredible, diverse, ambitious people with whom I have no doubt will stay as long term relationships. App Academy teaches you how to learn and provides you with the structure to learn as much as possible in 16 weeks.

Doesn’t look like much when you walk past, but I was practically dying to code so I popped in. The definition of a hole-in-the-wall. I got the software engineering special and wow… there are no words. A course done right. Stuffed with Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React, Redux, then topped off with essential algorithms and data structures. There’s about a million bugs between your code and the solution, so it can get a little overwhelming, but you really can’t go wrong. Not much else to say besides go see for yourself! You won’t be disappointed.

I was a student in the August 2019 cohort. App academy is great for getting up to speed on the fundamentals as well as the cutting edge frameworks currently used in the field. You truly get to know the full stack. However, before you sign up ask them about the cohort size. Previous cohorts have been ~30 students, our cohort was 65+ and it was a challenge working in such a large group. The career coaching during the job search was also very difficult (a lot of pressure), but the coach has left a/A and the rest of the staff seem to be on their game. Your milage may vary.

When I was first deciding between bootcamps I wasn't sure how to determine the advantages of one over the other. Asking around in different bootcamps, App Academy definitely seemed to be the most competitive to get into as well as having a rigorous work load. I decided to attend App Academy and it was definitely one of the hardest and best things I've ever done. From the 4 months of course work, I learned a lot on frameworks and applications that are used in the industry. My cohort/class mates were extremely intelligent and I met a lot of great friends. They do have a policy where they ask you to leave if you fail two exams, which could be the reason for other negative reviews. The school provides you with everything you need to pass the exams and if you prepare enough then you should be fine. I did spend about 80 hours a week studying, but doing it alongside others is a part of the experience. The teachers/ lecturers are extremely knowledgeable and are always willing to help.

App Academy has a rigorous curriculum, but is incredibly rewarding. In just a few months you go from barely knowing anything about coding, to being able to develop full stack apps. Along the way you also meet some amazing people and have a fantastic support system. You are surrounded by other students who share your same passion for coding as well as TA's who went through the program themselves. It's a lot of hard work, and can be stressful keeping up with the light-speed curriculum, but it's 100% worth it.

I made it through the storm that is App Academy. App Academy is the most time consuming and stressful thing I have done in the last few years(And that includes starting a business).  My cohort started with around 25 people...  In the end, there were only 10 of us left(including a coder that was rolled back into our group).  Even though App Academy hours are from 8 am - 5 pm pacific time, there is usually a few hours of homework and readings every night as well. I usually found myself going to bend around midnight to 2 am studying every night since I was in central time.

In addition there are six assessments which you must score around an 85% to 90% or better in order to pass or after two fails you may be asked to leave the program.  So between studying for these assessments to remain in the program, doing the nightly homework videos, readings and coding projects where you are expected to take on and learn new content,  and the daily grind of 8 am to 5 pm (or 10 am to 7 pm if you are in the mid-west), and any ongoing projects or other fun homework that might be assigned, you might find yourself incredibly busy.

During the week it is pretty much impossible to find time to get out or do anything social. I made sure to keep myself active though and workout daily.  I think the assessments create a very stressful learning environment for the students and aren't a good measure of a coders ability. I saw many coders very stressed about the upcoming assessments. For some this brings out the best and motivates people to do better. For others, they would simply self-destruct.

What I love about App Academy is that it has taught me to think like a coder instead of having to resort to copy and paste or following tutorials to create websites, write backends, set up API endpoints, create games, or manage the flow of an app. I feel confident that I can build anything or learn any new kind of technology stack very quickly and use the thought process  that I have gained from App Academy. 

I was bummed at first that they taught Ruby as I consider it a dying language(Yes Ruby is still in demand). Even though it has many easy and useful and methods that can making coding much faster and simpler, it appears that it is not being used nearly as much by companies as Javascript, Python, Java, and some other languages. (By the way App Academy is switching to Python and I am excited to get access to their content). However, App Academy taught me Javascript as well, React, the MERN stack with MongoDB.  I learned GraphQL, docker, postresql, how to make GeoQueries,  organize my code better, and take advantage of object oriented programming. I mastered algorithms,  recursion, data structures, became great at debugging and learned many other things.

Their curriculum is on a whole other level from what you will usually find. If you complete the course, you will a deep understanding of algorithms, data structures,  how servers work, requests, responses, big-O, LRU cache, optimizations and many other things. We did things like creating our own version of Rails Active Record to see how Ruby on Rails worked behind the scenes. We did the same thing with JQuery. Once again, its more than just copy and paste. It's real understanding that you can take to any other endeavor.

And what I have found, when picking up a new language, framework or stack, is that the thought process is pretty much the same. I have been able to teach myself Dart to make mobile apps in Flutter and pick up python very quickly just using the techniques and knowledge that I gained from App Academy.

The Instructors are excellent, brilliant problem solvers, very knowledgeable and almost always available, even on the weekends or if you have a late night question.

I am currently about to start the Job Search phase, so we will see how this converts to finding a job. However, I feel very confident in my abilities.  Would I have put in 19 hours a day in coding for 6 months without App Academy? Probably not. App Academy also gave me streamlined curriculum to be prepared for the job search and and to be ready to build anything, instead of wasting my time on many youTube videos or Udemy courses that aren't useful don't help you to actually learn to solve problems like a coder.

Even beyond the job search, this has definitely changed my life, since I have many website and app ideas, and now I possess the skills to bring them into reality. I am no longer unsure where to start or how to attack a problem. App Academy has helped to break down problems and return solutions.

I do wish they went more into design. But I found myself getting very strong at design by working on the projects at the end of the course.